Best Email Marketing App for Shopify

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Why I Decided to Switch Email Marketing Tools

I've been selling digital products on Shopify for years, and over that time I've bounced between several email marketing platforms. My history looks something like this:

• Pre-2018: Mailchimp, the default choice for most people starting out
• 2018–2021: Kit (formerly ConvertKit), switched because Mailchimp was missing features I needed
• 2021–present: MailerLite, switched because I was worried about cost as my list grew

For a long time, MailerLite felt like the right call. It's affordable, clean, and easy to use. But after studying what the most successful Shopify stores were doing with their email marketing, I started to suspect I was leaving serious money on the table by not adopting two specific features that my current tool simply didn't offer.

That's what sent me down the rabbit hole of testing 35 platforms to figure out which one actually deserves a Shopify store owner's money.

The Two Features I Was Missing

1. Multi-Step Popups

A standard popup asks for your visitor's email address right away. They land on your site, a form appears, and they either subscribe or close it. Most people close it.

A multi-step popup works differently. Instead of immediately asking for an email, it first asks a simple yes/no or multiple-choice question, something like "Are you looking to grow your Shopify store?" The visitor clicks yes, and then the email field appears on the second step.

This works because of a well-documented psychological principle called the foot-in-the-door effect. Once someone takes a small action (clicking a button), they're significantly more likely to follow through with the next one. The result is meaningfully higher opt-in rates compared to single-step forms.

MailerLite offers no multi-step option. It's a one-step form, full stop.

2. Dynamic Discount Codes with Countdown Timers

Most welcome email sequences offer a discount code like WELCOME20. The problem with this is that it creates zero urgency. The code never expires, the subscriber knows it, and there's no real reason to act quickly.

Dynamic discount codes solve this by generating a unique, expiring coupon code for each individual subscriber, automatically. Combine that with a built-in countdown timer showing exactly when the code expires, and you create genuine urgency that drives conversions.

With MailerLite, generating unique coupons is possible but requires several extra steps and workarounds. It's not clean, and it's not built for the way Shopify works.

I Tested 35 Email Marketing Tools. Here's What I Found.

I signed up for every major email marketing platform I could find, 35 in total. I built a pricing spreadsheet tracking every plan tier, dug into each platform's popup builder, and tested how each one handled discount code generation for Shopify stores.

The result was clear: the vast majority of platforms either don't support multi-step popups at all, have poor Shopify integration, or make dynamic discount codes needlessly complicated.

Out of 35 email marketing platforms tested, only two support the multi-step popup system. The two platforms that made the cut: Klaviyo and Omnisend.

Both are built specifically for e-commerce. Both have clean, native Shopify integrations. Both support multi-step popups and dynamic discount codes with countdown timers out of the box. The question then became: which one is actually worth paying for?

Klaviyo vs. Omnisend: Head-to-Head

Pricing Comparison

Both platforms price based on the number of subscribers on your list. Here's how they compare at different list sizes:

Klaviyo is consistently 30 to 50% more expensive than Omnisend across every tier. At 50,000 subscribers, you're paying $3,700 more per year for Klaviyo. At 100,000 subscribers, the gap grows to over $5,700 per year.

Putting That Cost in Perspective

A healthy e-commerce email list typically generates somewhere between $1 and $20 per subscriber per year, depending on how well your flows and campaigns are set up. Even at the conservative end, $1 per subscriber annually, a list of 50,000 subscribers is worth $50,000 per year.

At that scale, paying an extra $3,700 per year for Klaviyo over Omnisend would need to be justified by meaningfully better results. And from my testing, for the typical Shopify store owner, it isn't.

Features: Is Klaviyo Worth the Premium?

Klaviyo is a genuinely powerful platform. It has more advanced segmentation options, deeper analytics, and a larger ecosystem of integrations. If you're running a large operation with a dedicated email marketing team and complex segmentation needs, the extra cost may be justified.

But for most Shopify store owners, especially those running lean, solo, or with a small team, Omnisend delivers everything you actually need at a significantly lower price point. Multi-step popups, dynamic discount codes, abandoned cart flows, post-purchase sequences, SMS marketing, and a clean Shopify integration that just works.

My Verdict: Omnisend Wins

After testing 35 platforms and comparing the two clear winners head-to-head, Omnisend is the clear winner for the vast majority of Shopify store owners.

• ✅ Multi-step popups built in
• ✅ Dynamic unique discount codes with countdown timers
• ✅ Deep, clean Shopify integration
• ✅ 30–50% lower pricing than Klaviyo at every tier
• ✅ Covers email, SMS, and push notifications in one platform

For a lean operation, paying thousands more per year for Klaviyo with no meaningful benefit in day-to-day results isn't a smart investment. Omnisend gives you the tools that actually move the needle, at a price that makes sense.

Special Offer

Omnisend offers a free plan that includes virtually all core features, no artificial upgrade walls. If you want to get started with a paid plan, they agreed to offer a 30% discount (for 3 months) for my readers, no annual commitment required, monthly plans included.

→ Click here to claim your 30% discount